FIRST AMENDMENT: Fox News And Glenn Beck Lose Case Against GLENNBECKRAPEDAGIRLIN1990.COM

THR, ESQ:  Fox News’ Glenn Beck has lost a claim that a website called glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com was registered in bad faith and in violation of his trademark rights. The website was founded by Isaac Eiland-Hall earlier this year in response to a joke on odd-news site Fark about Beck’s lack of denial for a non-existent murder/rape. Eiland-Hall argued to WIPO hat he registered the website as a satirical critique of Beck’s conspiratorial politics. WIPO’s arbitration panel agreed that the website appeared “to be engaged in a parody of the style or methodology that (Eiland-Hall) appears genuinely to believe is employed by […]

MEDIA: Rupert Murdoch Vs. The Internets

THE GUARDIAN: Rupert Murdoch says he will remove stories from Google’s search index as a way to encourage people to pay for content online. In an interview with Sky News Australia, the mogul said that newspapers in his media empire – including the Sun, the Times and the Wall Street Journal – would consider blocking Google entirely once they had enacted plans to charge people for reading their stories on the web. In recent months, Murdoch his lieutenants have stepped up their war of words with Google, accusing it of “kleptomania” and acting as a “parasite” for including News Corp […]

Q&A: Ask The Yes Men

The Yes Men is a group of culture jamming activists who practice what they call “identity correction” by pretending to be powerful people and spokespersons for prominent organizations. From their offices in Milwaukee, they create and maintain fake websites similar to ones they want to spoof, and then they accept invitations received on their websites to appear at conferences, symposia, and TV shows. Their newfound, self-proclaimed authority to express the idea that corporations and governmental organizations often act in dehumanizing ways toward the public has met both positively and negatively with political overtones. Elaborate props are sometimes part of the […]

PAPERBOY: Slow-Jamming The Alt-Weeklies

BY DAVE ALLEN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. We pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and steer […]

WORTH REPEATING: All Hail The Paper Boy

DAILY NEWS: They call him Number One, and after 50 years Jim Phelan has earned the nickname. Phelan, 69, started delivering the Daily News in 1959, following in his father’s tracks. Number One (or Fancy Feet, as they called him back when he wore his trademark black-and-white saddle shoes) is the longest-serving driver in the Teamsters local that delivers the paper. In fact, Phelan’s supervisor, Jim DePasquale, said that when Phelan told him about his years of service, “I thought he was lying. . . . Then I looked up his hiring and seniority list – and he’s Number One […]

PAPERBOY: Slow-Jamming The Alt-Weeklies

BY DAVE ALLEN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. We pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and steer […]

WHAT HE SAID: Cracking The Nutcracker

EDITOR’S NOTE: Footage from Wednesday’s press conference at the National Press Club wherein conservative muckraker Andre Breitbart, James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles attempt to expose ACORN’s ‘lies’ about what happened in the Philadelphia office. Blogger Mike Stark let’s the air out of their balloon with the three simple questions any responsible reporter should have asked by now — and that includes you, Stu Bykofsky. MEDIA MATTERS: Following the release of what Fox News itself called “heavily edited tape” of conservative James O’Keefe’s visit to a Philadelphia ACORN office, Fox News ran captions stating, “Exposing ACORN: New Video Shows Unlawful Actions.” […]

PAPERBOY: Slow-Jamming The Alt-Weeklies

BY DAVE ALLEN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. We pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and steer […]

MEDIA: The Nutcracker Strikes Back!

[Artwork by ALEX FINE] BY JONATHAN VALANIA On Tuesday, Big Government.com, the conservative web site behind the ACORN hooker sting videos, issued a press release that reads in part: After suing Breitbart.com, Mr. O’Keefe and Ms. Giles in Maryland over the release of the Baltimore tapes, ACORN has issued public statements denying any wrongdoing in its Philadelphia office and lying about what happened there. Mr. O’Keefe and Ms. Giles are now prepared to respond.According to Mr. Breitbart, “ACORN representatives claim James and Hannah were kicked out of Philadelphia. They also said publicly that unlike Baltimore, Washington D.C., Brooklyn, San Bernardino […]

Tierney & Co. Add $20M To Their Bid For Inky/DN

INQUIRER: Three local investors allied with newspaper publisher Brian P. Tierney are adding more than $20 million to their offer for the Daily News and Inquirer.The three local investors – businessman Bruce Toll, philanthropist David Haas and the Carpenters Union Pension Fund – had previously offered $52 million in cash and credit as part of a reorganization plan to bring the newspapers out of bankruptcy. The plan called for the newspapers’ lenders to receive $37 million in cash and ownership of the newspaper building at Broad and Callowhill streets, valued at $29 million. The original proposal would have paid about […]